Shelf Life
by Ariadnerue
Summary: Harry/Hermione, oneshot. They didn't know that everything would turn out perfectly. But in the end, everything did.


Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling

I've been working on this on and off for several months now. Then I completely rewrote the whole thing because the first draft sucked. It takes place a couple years after Deathly Hallows and is not Epilogue-compliant.

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><p>It was one in the morning in the middle of a particularly cold and snowy January when a tall, skinny 20-year-old came to the front door of Number 12 Grimmauld Place. His bottle green eyes were narrowed to slits behind his round glasses to keep out the snow, which was blowing around in a howling wind as he muttered angrily to himself and searched the pockets of his greatcoat. He stamped his feet briefly, partially out of agitation and partially to knock the snow from his boots.<p>

After a few frantic moments, he dropped the leather travel bag from his shoulder with a groan so he could search his pockets with both hands. This tactic apparently worked, as only moments later he pulled out his wand with a triumphant laugh. He was just reaching forward with it to tap the door, when the door flung open and a wand was pointed in his face. He froze, unable to make out just who was holding the wand in the gloom of the doorway. But as soon as he crossed his eyes and caught sight of the vine pattern on the wand, he knew who he was dealing with.

"Harry?" Hermione Granger gasped. The wand immediately withdrew and the hall lights flickered to life.

"Nice to see you too, Hermione," Harry Potter replied, smiling through the sarcasm in his voice.

All the tension drained from Hermione's shoulders and face as she let out a sigh of relief. "Sorry," she laughed lightly, putting a hand to her forehead. "I didn't expect to run into anyone here this late."

Harry frowned a bit and tucked his wand back into his pocket. "Well this is my house, technically," he pointed out, lifting his bag up off the icy stoop. "So I think the better question is what are you doing here?"

Hermione looked rather nervous for a split second, and in that split second Harry noticed how tired she looked. She was a bit pale too, but her cheeks were red, either from the cold, or perhaps she was ill. He immediately felt a surge of concern, but the split second passed and Hermione grabbed him by the arm.

"Come on, get inside," she said quickly. "We can talk once you've thawed."

Harry locked the door behind him and was about to take off his coat when Hermione pulled him into a hug. He laughed a bit and enveloped her in his arms. It still surprised him, how perfectly they fit together. He'd noticed it in their first year at Hogwarts when she hugged him for the first time, and despite the amount they had both grown since then, their hugs hadn't changed a bit.

"Ugh, you're freezing," she exclaimed, her voice muffled against his shoulder. Her hair smelled nice, like summer flowers; a stark contrast to the current climate. The hug broke off naturally and Hermione smiled at him, tilting her head toward the door down to the kitchen. "I have the kettle on."

They descended to the kitchen together. The fire was already lit, and a kettle was on for tea. Clearly Hermione hadn't been here much longer than Harry. With a few flicks of her wand, Hermione set some eggs sizzling on a pan on the stove and the kettle came zooming out of the fireplace. Harry set aside his bag and his coat while Hermione finished preparing the tea, and they sat across from each other at the long dinner table close to the fire. Only when they each had a cup of tea and a plate of buttered eggs on toast in front of them did they pause to take a good look at each other.

Hermione was giving Harry that shrewd look he knew so well from their years in school together. He frowned a bit with his mouth full of eggs.

"What?" he asked thickly.

She laughed lightly and looked down at her tea cup. "You and Ginny are fighting again, aren't you?" she asked wryly.

Harry let out a long sigh and took a drink. "Again?" he asked with a glance up at her. "I wasn't aware we'd stopped." She smiled fondly at his good temper. "Yes, as always, you know what's wrong before I even have to say it." He ran a hand through his hair in agitation, but the self-deprecating smile never left his face. "She told me this was it; we were done for real this time."

Hermione sighed a bit. "I'm sorry, Harry," she said earnestly, and she patted his arm with a warm hand. He smiled at her, and she grinned back. But then her eyes turned down to her tea again. "I honestly had no idea it was getting so bad you had to leave. How long have you been coming here?"

He thought for a moment, scratching the back of his neck. "I'm not sure… a year and a half?" he muttered. "I'm usually only here for a night, sometimes a couple of days." He laughed a bit. "Makes me glad we all cleaned up the place a couple years ago. It's nice not having those screaming portraits and all the snake-themed decorations every time I'm here."

Harry, with the help of his friends, had scrubbed every centimeter of Grimmauld Place after the war, finally getting rid of all the distasteful décor and generally making it a nice, normal wizarding home. But now, apparently, it wasn't so much a home as a hiding place.

"But wait," Harry said suddenly, leveling an accusing gaze at Hermione. "What are you doing here?"

She squirmed a bit in her seat and looked down at the table. Rather than answer right away, she pointed her wand at the sink and their empty plates and flatware zipped away from the table and started washing themselves. The tea remained behind, and since Harry could see how uncomfortable Hermione was, he pointed his own wand at a high cupboard and summoned a dusty bottle of Blishen's Firewhiskey to the table. She stared at him as he added a dash of the liquid to each of their tea cups.

Hermione arched an eyebrow and gave him a look.

"What?" he asked innocently. "We're all adults here."

Hermione sighed again and took a drink. She winced a bit, but otherwise seemed wholly unaffected. She placed her cup back on the table and cleared her throat a bit.

"Ron and I have been fighting," she said slowly. "A lot." She fidgeted a bit more and met his eyes for a second. "I've been coming here, just like you, for about a year now." She shrugged. "In fact I'm surprised we haven't crossed paths before now. I'm kind of here a lot."

"Hermione," Harry said quietly. She looked up at him again and was surprised by how concerned he looked. "I had no idea you two were fighting. He hasn't…" He paused uncomfortably. "Hurt you or anything…?"

"No," Hermione said hurriedly. "No, of course not. I mean…" She smiled a bit. "This is Ron we're talking about."

"Oh, good," Harry sighed, genuinely relieved. "I mean I… wouldn't want to have to beat him up or anything," he added gruffly, and Hermione laughed. They lapsed into a peaceful silence, sipping their tea and whiskey and gazing at the fire.

Harry finally spoke up. "I don't get it, Hermione," he said quietly. "You and Ron always fought at school. But you ended up together anyway."

Hermione frowned. "That was… different, somehow," she sighed. "At school, you were always there to stop us, and it was always something meaningless to begin with." She drummed her fingers on the table for a moment. "Now, there's no one to step in and remind us how stupid we're being. We just yell at each other all the time."

"Sounds familiar," Harry muttered.

"When I left this time, he told me not to bother coming back," she said, sounding tired. "We're done for real. Again."

"Also sounds familiar," Harry sighed, tilting another splash of firewhiskey into his cup. Hermione wordlessly pushed her cup forward, so he gave her some more as well. Another thoughtful silence prevailed in which they both sighed a great deal. The clock over the fireplace chimed, signifying it was now two in the morning. They both sipped from their teacups.

"Why do we go back to them, Hermione?"

Hermione glanced up. Harry had broken the silence at last, his chin on his hand and his elbow on the table as he stared forlornly into the fire. Hermione mimicked his position, pausing thoughtfully.

"Because we're supposed to," she said at last, shrugging a bit. "I'm with Ron and you're with Ginny. That's how it is. That's how it's supposed to be."

Harry stared at her. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you're the brave, dashing hero, right?" she began with a smirk. Harry scowled at her. "So naturally, you end up with the feisty, devastatingly beautiful leading lady, in this case Ginny." Harry quirked an eyebrow at her. "And Ron, the lovable sidekick, would then end up with me, the intelligent female friend." She shrugged again. "That's just the way it goes."

Harry continued staring at her. "Hermione, you're the smartest person I know," he began after several moments. "But that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard."

She feigned offense. "Hey, you're supposed to be dashing or something," she said, pretending to be highly affronted. "You shouldn't treat your intelligent female friend in such a way."

Harry snorted with laughter, which Hermione quickly joined. They sat there giggling inanely for a few minutes before settling back down.

"Honestly Hermione, I'd always considered you more of a leading lady," Harry said with a charming smile.

Hermione blushed and rolled her eyes. "Whatever you say," she replied sarcastically.

"Hey," he laughed, reaching out and placing his hand over hers. "I'm trying to be serious here."

She slowly met his gaze, still blushing. "Don't be silly," she said quietly, sliding her hand away. "We've been drinking."

Harry snorted again. "Yes, tea with two whole teaspoons of alcohol, what rebels we are," he proclaimed in a highly exaggerated fashion. "Just bear with me for a moment. How exactly did you and Ron end up together?"

Hermione thought about it for a few long moments. "Well… later on in our fourth year, we started spending more time alone together while you were off… being Harry Potter," she said lightly, prompting him to roll his eyes. "I guess whenever you were gone, we were together and we got closer. So by the end it just made sense."

"What about before fourth year?" Harry asked, interestedly sipping his tea.

Hermione blushed and avoided his eyes. "Well… to be honest…" she began quietly. "I'd always had a bit of a crush on you, Harry."

If he hadn't just set his teacup back down, he probably would have dropped it in surprise. "What?" he asked bluntly. "Me?"

Hermione rolled her eyes, her cheeks burning red. "Well of course, you," she muttered, embarrassed. "You're my best friend, Harry. Not to mention no other boy had ever paid as much attention to me or been so nice to me." She began fiddling nervously with her cup, never removing her eyes from it. "We had a lot in common, coming from muggle families and all… I felt we had a connection, something Ron wasn't really a part of. Especially at the end of third year and the start of fourth, when we were spending a lot of time alone together…" She was blushing so fiercely at this point, Harry could almost feel the heat radiating from her. "I was just… infatuated, that's all. It was silly… you never thought of me that way. I knew that when you didn't invite me to the Yule Ball."

She stopped speaking suddenly, eyes wide as though she hadn't meant to say that last part.

"Let's just forget about it," she said hurriedly, grimacing at the fireplace.

"Hermione," Harry said quietly. She still refused to look at him, so he continued. "I know this is probably a bad time to tell you this… but there was a time when I fancied you too."

She finally looked at him, appearing fairly flabbergasted. This time, he blushed.

"It was, er, while I was dating Cho, actually," he began uncomfortably. "She got mad at me whenever I mentioned you, and she was always asking if there was something between us. And that made me realize I did talk about you a lot, and I thought about you a lot, and I started noticing things…" He trailed off nervously. "Like how pretty your eyes are, and how nice you always smell, and the way you smiled when you first saw me in the morning…" Hermione hadn't noticed her mouth had fallen open slightly, but Harry wasn't looking at her anyway so it didn't matter. "But by then you had started to fancy Ron, I could tell. And I didn't want to get in the way… so I tried to forget about it. And then Ginny…"

They both fell silent. This wasn't a peaceful silence like before. It was awkward and clumsy, and neither really wanted to look at each other. Suddenly the fire seemed far too hot, and neither one of them so much as looked at their tea, let alone drank any.

Harry eventually cleared his throat. "I guess I was just a year too late," he muttered, embarrassed.

Hermione stared at him for a long time. "Are you in love with her, Harry?" she finally asked in a very quiet voice.

Harry swallowed hard and shook his head. "I mean, I do love her," he said just as quietly. "But not the way she deserves." Hermione looked down. "And you? Are you in love with Ron?"

There was a long pause. "I want to be," she finally said. "I've tried to be. I do love him, just like you do. But…" She closed her eyes. "No, I'm not in love with him. And he deserves more, too."

The silence that followed was deafening. This night had taken a turn they weren't expecting.

"So what do we do?" Harry asked, his voice just above a whisper. They both leaned back in their chairs, gazing into nowhere.

"I don't know," Hermione replied. She shook her head. "I really… just don't know."

"I mean… we can't just go on the way we have been," Harry said slowly, eyes fixed on the ceiling. "That wouldn't be fair to anyone involved."

Hermione nodded a bit. "But the Weasleys are our family," she added. "I couldn't live without them. All of them. Neither of us could."

"They'll understand," Harry said quietly. "You and me and Ron, we'll always be together. That's the one thing I know better than anything in the world."

Hermione smiled a bit. "Of course," she agreed. "The three of us can't really be apart." Another pause. "And Ginny… she has a temper, but she's our friend too. She'll be angry at first, they both will. But she'll come around." She looked down at the table. "Everything will turn out okay."

"You're right," Harry said decidedly. "We just have to have honest conversations with them. We owe them that."

The atmosphere in the room had changed. It was no longer suffocating. The air around them was quiet. Resigned. Even the wind outside seemed to have silenced. Crookshanks came slinking into the room, apparently having finished his arrival investigation of the house and deemed it satisfactory. He leapt into Harry's lap and allowed him to pet him for a few moments before dismounting and curling up on the hearth.

"Where does that leave us?"

Neither would remember later who asked that question. It may have been either or both of them. But their eyes met across the table, and they looked at each other like two sleepers waking from a long dream. Hermione was the first to look away, swallowing hard and tucking her hair behind her ears.

"I still have feelings for you," she said quietly.

"I don't think I ever stopped having feelings for you," Harry replied.

They sat fidgeting for a minute, trying to avoid each other's eyes.

"Well we're both technically single right now," Harry said slowly.

Hermione frowned. "Technically?" she repeated skeptically.

"I know nothing can happen until everything is clear between us and the Weasleys," Harry said hurriedly. "And it may take a long time for all of us to be okay. But eventually…" He trailed off, running a hand nervously through his hair. "I do want to be with you."

Hermione couldn't help but smile. "That sounds… nice," she replied quietly. Then she yawned. Harry shortly did the same.

"Forgot how late it is," he admitted with a sheepish grin. He got to his feet and stretched. Hermione followed suit, and they wordlessly left the kitchen and mounted the stairs. They stopped at the first landing outside the room Hermione had chosen to sleep in. She gave Harry another hug and said goodnight.

Then he kissed her.

It was nothing scandalous, nor was it entirely chaste. It was just a long, soft kiss on the lips. When they broke apart, he looked just as surprised as she did.

"I did not intend to do that," he stated blankly. They both blushed vibrantly and stared at each other. "But… I don't regret it either." He smiled at her. "It was a goodnight kiss. I'll see you in the morning, Hermione." And he continued up the stairs. He saw her smiling when he looked over his shoulder.

As the two of them lied in their beds, smiling and trying to fall asleep, they didn't know what was to come. They didn't know Ron would show up at the door the next morning to apologize. They didn't know that when Hermione told him she thought they would be better off apart, he would be relieved because he was worried they were holding each other back. They didn't know the three of them would have breakfast together and have the most fun they'd had in years just talking to each other. They didn't know that when Harry left halfway through the day the talk to Ginny, he would be back half an hour later with everything he owned hastily packed into boxes. They didn't know Ginny would show up herself later that night, and all of them would have a long, honest conversation over dinner.

They didn't know that everything would turn out perfectly. But in the end, everything did.


End file.
